Stephanie's mouth dropped open. “As your⦔
“My secretary. Exactly.”
“No! Davidâ”
“And,” he said, his eyes warning her not to try and defy him, “now that I've had time to think about it, I'm advising you to leave your clothing right where it is.”
Stephanie's look changed from one of confusion to outright disbelief. “Why on earth would I do that?”
“Well,” he said, “I could invent some legal mumbojumbo by way of explanation, but the simple fact is that I'd imagine it'll be an endless source of amusement for you, envisioning Ms. Willingham trying to shoehorn her corpulent self into your things.”
There was a second of silence. Then Clare called David a name that made his eyebrows shoot into his hairline, and Stephanie laughed.
She had, he thought, a wonderful laugh. It was free, and easy, and when he looked at her, he suddenly had the feeling that this was the first time she'd laughed, really laughed, in years.
“Stephanie?” he said, and held out his hand.
Stephanie looked at his hand. She thought of her sad old suitcase, lying open on the bed upstairs, and that the only clothes in this entire house that were salvageable and really hers were the ones she was already wearing.
“Stephanie?” David said again, “shall we leave?”
Don't be stupid, she told herself, Stephanie, don't be an idiotâ¦
“Yes,” she said, and she smiled, took his outstretched hand, and walked away from Seven Oaks, and Clare, and the terrible memories of a life she'd never, ever wanted.
* * *
The day had started with soft breezes and bright sunshine, but as they drove away from Seven Oaks, it began to drizzle. By the time they reached the highway, the drizzle had turned into a downpour.
Stephanie sat rigid and silent, the euphoria of her departure gone.
What have I done?
she kept thinking, and when David turned on the windshield wipers, they offered not an answer but a command.
Go back, they sang as they swooped across the glass.
Go back, Stephanie, go back
.
“How about some music?” David said.
She jumped at the sound of his voice. He hadn't spoken a word until now, either. She looked at him, at the stern mouth and firm jaw. He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire, Steffie. Go back, go back, go back.
“Stephanie?”
Music. He was asking her if she wanted to hearâ
“Yes.” She swallowed dryly. “Music would be fine.”
He reached out and punched a button on the dashboard. Dark, deep chords and arpeggios resonated through the car.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, and punched another button. Rachmaninoff gave way to Paul Simon. “I like classical stuff, but, I don't know, at the moment, Rachmaninoff seems⦔
Melodramatic, at the very least. Stephanie folded her hands tightly together in her lap. Here she was, fleeing one nightmare for what might just as easily be another.
“Do you like Simon? The old stuff, I mean, that he wrote and recorded with Art Garfunkel.”
It was such an inane conversational thread; if she hadn't known better, she'd have suspected David was having second thoughts, too. But if he were, if he'd changed his mind about offering her a job, he'd have pulled off to the side of the road and told her so. Bluntly. If there was one thing she knew about David Chambers, it was that he didn't pull his punches. He said what he was thinking, took what he wanted without hesitationâ¦
Her heart gave an unsteady thud. And she was running off with him?
The wipers swooshed across the windshield.
Oh, Steffie
, they sang.
Go back, go back, go back
.
* * *
Windshield wipers were strange things.
They swept across the glass, back and forth, back and forth, and after a while you could set a tune to them. Lyrics, too.
David's hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Unfortunately, he didn't much care for the words to this particular song. Not the one drifting from the car's speakers; Simon and Garfunkel were singing about Mrs. Robinson, and that was just fine. It was the lyric only he could hear that was the problem.
Crayâzee
, the wipers sang,
Oh, man, you are crayay
â
zeeee
â¦
Damn right. How else to explain why he was driving along with Stephanie Willingham tucked into the seat beside himâalthough not even an optimist would describe her as looking “tucked in.” She looked about as relaxed as he felt Her back was straight as a board, her hands were clenched in her lap, and her mouth was a tight little knot. People sitting in dental waiting rooms looked happier than she did, and who could blame her? He wasn't in the best of moods himself.
What in hell had possessed him? He'd gone down to Georgia because Jack had asked him to. Okay, maybe there'd been more to it than that. Maybe he'd gone to find what the shrinks called closure, a way of signing off on the experience of a couple of Sundays ago. Okay, so there was no “maybe” about it. He'd driven to Willingham Corners to take a cold look at Stephanie and get her out of his head. That had been step one. Step two was supposed to have been letting her bend his ear with her tale of woe, which would have led to the good part, when he chucked her under the chin and said, hey, he was sorry but she was fresh out of luck, and out of suckersâ¦
Now here he was, top contender for the Sucker of the Year award.
Okay. Stephanie hadn't trapped him into this mess. Not directly. He'd managed to do that by himself. But she'd helped. Damn right, she had. David's jaw tightened. Instead of listening to Simon and Garfunkel, they ought to be humming strains from the
The Merry Widow
. That's what his passenger was, a widow who wouldn't even bother to pretend she was grieving, who claimed not to have a cent to her name or a job or a place to take shelterâ¦
Claimed? It was probably true, otherwise she'd never have gone with him. So what? Those were her problems, not his. Stephanie had made her bed. Now she could lie in it.
Or in his. His bed. His arms. And he could kiss her until she went all soft and breathless, as she had before Clare had burst into the room, and perhaps then he could seek out and find that sweetness that seemed to be waiting just for him, only for him.
Crayâzee
, the wipers blades whispered.
You are crayâzeeâ¦
Think about the case. Concentrate on the law. What were the facts? Could a man leave his wife with zero bucks when he had plenty? Had Avery Willingham simply given Stephanie a raw deal? Had he bought her favor for cold, hard cash, married her, shown her off to the world but arranged it so that when he toddled off this planet, there was nothing for her to inherit?
But she was entitled to something, wasn't she? The court should have seen that.
On the other hand, how come Stephanie was broke? At the rate of a couple of thou per month, the little bride should have had time to amass a pretty decent retirement fund.
David frowned.
Where was the money? What had she done with it? It was a great question. How come he'd neglected to ask it?
David's frown deepened. Because he was the wrong person to handle this case, that was why. His involvement was too personal. Tooâtoo something. Call it what you wanted, it was not going to work. A lawyer and a client worked best when there was some space between them, not when they started out with a history that involved damn near making it in the cabin of an airplane.
There was a way out. He'd get Stephanie to Washington, check her into a hotel and phone Jay O'Leary. Or Bev Greenberg. Or any of the half a dozen juniors at the firm. One of them would be more than happy to take the case, and, come to think of it, wasn't one of the pool secretaries going on maternity leave next week?
“That's it,” David murmured.
“Excuse me?”
He looked at Stephanie. “Nothing,” he said, and smiled. “Nothing at all.”
Still smiling, he turned up the volume on the radio and began humming along with Paul and Art.
* * *
Nothing? Nothing at all?
Stephanie stared blindly out the window.
Something was going on in David's head, and she knew damn well it couldn't be classified as “nothing.”
A few minutes ago, he'd looked like a man on his way to his own execution. Now he was the portrait of contentment, from his smug little smile to the fingers tapping against the steering wheel to the abominable, off-key humming. What did he have to feel so good about?
Nothing she could think of.
As for her, she was beyond feeling, unless you wanted to dwell strictly on the panic she felt growing inside her as the minutes, and the miles, flew by.
What on earth was she doing here? It had seemed such a wonderful exit, walking straight out the door of that hideous mausoleum and leaving Clare looking even more slack-jawed than usual.
So she'd done it. Shall we leave? this manâthis arrogant, oh-so-quick-to-condemn manâhad said. And she had. She'd followed him blindly and now here she was, heading for no place, with nothing to her name but the grungy clothes on her back, a handful of change that she'd scooped off her dresser this morning, and a comb.
Well, that's good, Steff. You have a comb, at least. That ought to be a big help when you get to D.C. and find out that this man has no real intention of helping you. For all you know, he's going to tell you that your “secretarial” duties will begin, and end, in his bedroom.
“Stop the car!”
David looked at Stephanie. She had a wild look in her eyes and she was already fumbling with her seat belt. He cursed, twisted the wheel hard to the right and pulled onto the grassy shoulder of the road. The car behind them shot past, horn blaring.
“Dammit,” he roared, “what the hell are you doing?”
Flinging open the door, that was what she was doing. Hurling herself out like a human projectile and then sprinting for the nearby woods. David undid his seat belt and chased after her.
She was easy enough to catch. Not that she wasn't fast on her feet; it was only that he was faster. Four years as a running back on a much-needed football scholarship at Yale still guaranteed that. He reached her just as she entered the treeline, tackled her and brought her down in a tangle of arms and legs. They rolled down a shallow embankment and landed in a pile of last fall's leaves, Stephanie on her back, David straddling her.
“Dammit, Stephanie⦔
“Don't you âStephanie' me, youâyouâ”
Words weren't enough. She made a fist and punched him, as hard as she could, in the belly. He grunted, grabbed for her wrists, forced her arms over her head and pinned them to the ground.
“Let go of me!”
“Not if you're going to pretend I'm a punching bag.”
“Letâgoâofâme, youâyou⦔
“Are you nuts? What did I do, to rate this?”
“You were born with the wrong chromosomes. Let go!”
“Will you behave if I do?”
“Yes,” she said.
Only a fool would have believed her, and David had committed his last foolish act an hour ago, when he'd walked her out the door and into his life.
“You're pretty fast with the punches,” he said as she struggled beneath him. “What'd you do, grow up in a gym?”
“No,” she panted. “I grew up with a brother who believed in women being able to defend themselves against men like you!”
“Men like me?” David gave a short, sharp laugh. “Yup, you're right. You sure as hell need to know how to defend yourself against an s.o.b. like me. Why, just look at what I've done in the past hour. Defended you againstâ”
“You didn't defend me,” Stephanie huffed, trying to shove his weight off her. “Why would you? I don't need defending.”
“Need it or not, I defended you. And I offered you free legal adviceâ”
“Some advice. You told me I've got as much chance of getting anything out of the estate as aâa cottonmouth has of getting petted.”
“It was not only free advice, it was excellent advice. Plus, I gave you a job.”
“Has.”
“Listen, lady, maybe typing letters isn't half as exotic as what you used to do to earn your daily bread, but most women in your position would be grateful for it.”
“And what is
that
supposed to mean, huh? âMost women in my position'? Just what, exactly, is
my
position, Mr. Chambers?”